The Scales of War

Our party moves through the castle and finds an unexplored staircase. Could their remaining hostage be here? Inside they find some lizard creatures, who are easily defeated. Following their path, they find a man chained to a fountain – his name is Adronsius!

Upon finding him, our party moves toward Brindol, exhausted with hostages, artifacts, and weapons in tow. Staying at the Red Door Inn, the hostages are returned and the letter is shown to the city. The head of Sinruth is also displayed as proof he is dead.

Upon their return, it is heard that their is an army of orcs on the march and the Antler-Thistle Six, as they are called, are needed to defeat them…

We're gonna kick the shit out of this door!

Continuing to move through the castle, our party enters a room with a door that makes a strange metal-on-metal noise. Stoobs, noting this, decides to break the door down to enter the next room. Upon doing this, Bridgette screams as Stoobs is hit by what was no doubt making the strange noise – a set of metal teeth dig into Stoobs! After he frees himself, our party notices a strange goblin in the center of the next room, wearing plate armor. Could it be Sinruth!

Nora takes the first hit from the huge Goblin, as she attempts to sneak around him. Aelar nails him with a bolt of lightning, and Jenks hit him so hard, he couldn’t move very fast. Stoobs then plants the Battle Standard of Honor, places his Oath of Enmity on him, and casts his mighty Radiant Vengeance. Shen manages to use a new weapon – his spirit polar bear to his Sinruth. Ruddick does an amazing tumble, managing to slide behind the table and hide for the battle. Sinruth pulls out his battle chain and whirls it around, connecting with Bridgett, who had charged in to attack. Seeing this, Nora attacks and hits with her Guiding Strike. Brigette, now furious, attacks using Devastating Strike and Furious Assault, doing massive damage to Sinruth. Shen follows with Spirit of Grief’s Shadow. Sinruth, obviously angered by this, whirls around and hits Bridgette and Jenks, knocking Bridgette down. Nora manages to hit with her Prophesied Strike, and Bridgette follows. Aelar and Shen create an advantage for the party by dazing Sinruth. Jenks, seeing this, sends his spider in to attack. Sinruth, having seen better days, screams in pain as the spider hits him. Shen uses his knowledge of primal arts to heal Bridgette and Jenks, who have been beaten up during this encounter. Sinruth decides to attack those nearest him again, nailing Bridgette. Aelar sees this and sends a flaming hawk at him. Jenks manages to run in and stabilize Bridgette, who appears motionless after her last attack. Haunting Spirits comes from the hands of Shen, and Bridgette takes another hit. Sinruth does a flash and a dance and disappears! The party attempts to remove the lid on the coffin in the room, but others search for him. Shen’s magic bear managed to locate him, Aelar and Stoobs follow to attack. Jenks, seeing this, takes his opportunity to hit him and successfully kills him. Out of anger for what he did to Bridgette, Stoobs takes Sinruth’s head. Aelar takes the dragon crest helm, which belongs to the city of Bridle, and the gauntlets as well. They find a map of the region marked with ambush spots.

Searching Sinruth’s body farther, they find a letter stating the Red Hand shall rise again! He apparently was hired to fight for the goblins and to take war items for the Red Hand.

I release you crypt-guardian

The monster in the center of the room turns out to be an evistro! It is released upon the entry of our party by two were-rats. The battle ensues against the were-rats, the party seems to forget about the evistro for a moment as they dispatch the rats. As they are fighting, one of the were-rats transforms into a dire-rat, narrowly missing Stoobs with its attack. Together our party defeats the rats in this room and sneaks back into the hallway – they are headed for the sun room!

On their way, they notice another room that appears to be a cathedral within the castle. Inside, more were-rats and a gnome guard the place. In this room, these enemies prove no match as our party easily defeats them, despite Ruddick spilling his quiver all over the place.

After defeating the enemies, our party notices a few items. Upon examining them, they invite one of the hostages to look at them. It turns out the Ceremonial Sword, Broken Shields, and Battle Standard were in this room the whole time! Our party recovers these to take back to Brindle with them.

Bones don't just quiver.

The party heads down the hallway from the chamber where Thurin was found to see what it can do for the remainder of the hostages and the artifacts. Ruddick, Jenks, and his pet spider scout ahead as they always do. They discover a throne room with piles of bones and a skeleton sitting in one of the thrones. Next to the skeleton is what appears to be a rotting corpse!

Relaying this information to the party, they decide to enter and attack whatever evil lies here. Upon their entry, the corpse shouts “Intruders!” and the bones begin shaking. “Arise my warriors,” is heard from the rotting corpse, and the bones assemble into skeletons! Our party attacks the skeletons, taking many hits throughout. Shen shows off his might using his spirit bear to protect the party in battle. The skeletons prove no match for our heroes as Aelar, Jenks, and Stoobs take them out. Time to take out the boss…

The rotting corpse turns out to be a wight upon closer inspection. With their attention now on the Wight, the party is filled with might from Nora, who sings a song of courage. Our heroes attack valiantly, but in the end it was Stoobs who took out the Wight using his mighty Memories of a Thousand Lifetimes. However, the dead wight merged with the remaining skeleton on the throne and healed it!

Our party focuses all their attention on the skeleton, while Bridgette finishes off another skeleton recovering some health in the process. In the end, the team defeats the skeleton in charge, with Ruddick dealing the final blow to it. The remaining skeletons re easily defeated by Nora and Aelar. During a search of the room, the party finds a battle standard that appears to give them help in battle.

Paintings are noticed on one of the walls, which appear to have been defaced. Seeing this, Aelar, Jenks, and Stoobs scout ahead and noticed a bear-sized dog glowing red…

You seem trustworthy, would you care to join our adventuring campaign?

Upon exiting the room, a strange new person makes an appearance in the hallway. He is cloaked and carrying a mysterious letter. He presents this letter to the party, which indicates he has been sent by the town of Brindle to assist them in rescuing the hostages and recovering all of the artifacts. The party insists on more proof, and Shen reveals the head of another hostage – Agath – whom he found outside of the castle murdered. Deciding the new member is trustworthy, they accept him into their party and proceed back into the hallway with the hostages in tow…

Heading back from whence they came, our party goes to the intersection and heads for the black sun doors. As they enter the room, our party is taken aback by what lies ahead. Lying in the floor is a large, black, mosaic sun! The torches and the sun both dim when people enter the room, making it fairly eerie. Running right through the center of the sun is a very large and very dangerous crack. They will have to be careful when crossing the room so as not to wind up a floor below…

Noticing nothing of value (more interest than anything) they decide to go back. They head for the honor guard crypt. Ruddick, doing what he does best, sneaks into the crypt unnoticed. This room is the same size as the black sun room, but with alcoves! In the middle of the room lies a fountain, with a small human tied to it.

This young man, who appears to be a pain in the ass from the looks of the other hostages, was taken from Brindle with his father – Cartnicks. He asks about his father, to which our party avoids the questions to not upset Thurin, as he is called.

Our party makes one final discovery before leaving the chambers with Thurin, a kit holding the makings of an escape tattoo is found and taken!

Heading north, Ruddick scouts ahead. He notices an intersection of two hallways, perpendicular to on another. To his left is a door with a black sun on it and voices are heard. To the right is a door with writing in a different language titled: “To honor the heroic guardians of Rivenroar,” and directly ahead is a staircase leading down to a door with a blue light emanating from it. Before Ruddick can decide what to do, two ghouls wander out of the door with the black sun on it. Ruddick decides this is the moment to leave and rejoins the party, telling them of what he saw.

The party heads into the hall toward the stairs with the blue light. There is no evidence of the ghouls wandering about, but they stay wary of what might happen. Upon entering the room, a pool of very flat, clear water takes up most of the room. Before much else can happen, Ruddick shouts “Hey monsters, come and get me!”

Our heroes were not impressed by the recklessness, but proceed anyway. The pool, when touched, showed different images of different rooms throughout the castle. It was a virtual map! They try to jump in, hoping the map would take them to their location, but all except Ruddick only wind up ankle-deep in water.

Trying to figure out what this pool does, Ruddick begins drinking the water. He feels refreshed! Then, to relieve himself, he deficates in the pool…all the characters have left the water by this point, thankfully. Then, with one final act of desperation, he jams a hexor rod into the pool bottom. Still nothing happens. A noise from behind pulls our heroes back from the pool…

Two ghouls and two zombies are at the foot of the stairs, growling at the party! Jenks runs into battle and is knocked out-again. Together, the party moves as a well-oiled machine. They are starting to work as one unit, rather than six separate units. Brigette uses her strength and might, Jenks, once stable, unleashes arrow after arrow at the creatures. Ruddick uses his abilities to flank and sneak attack, Nora hurls potent insults at then, Stoobs unleashes his mighty Radiant Vengeance, Aelar hurls flames at them, and Gratch attacks as a spider-pal should.
The creatures fall to the mighty Antler-Thistle Six.

Entering this next room, the title “Von Arez Kauthin Crypt” is noted by our heroes. The walls of this crypt were crawling with life. Each part of the wall had a likeness of a human walking around the room. They appeared to be likenesses of those buried in the crypt. Directly in the center of the room, sat 4 goblins and 2 spitting drakes! So much for the element of surprise…

A fight ensues for our party. Jenks manages to bust another bow – somewhere around 25% of the time he breaks a bow. Both he and Bridgette rush into the fight. Bridgette immediately gets blinded by the spit of the drakes, and Jenks is knocked unconscious. The rest of the party rushes to their assistance, stabilizing Jenks and defeating the drakes and goblins.

Once the creatures are dispatched, another enemy enters the room and begins deflecting the party’s attacks off him! Once he was hit, he went down, though. Hard to hit, but easy to defeat once hit.

Following their current path, they enter the next room adjacent to the crypt. Here there are 3 sarcophogi sticking out of the floor a tad. Also, a hostage named Jalissa is chained to the wall! Upon her rescue, the party offers her some food, and finds out she can alarm the room, which would be very helpful to the party, considering the beating they just took.

"I'm gonna bloopity-blam those dudes."

Sneaky McThief (Ruddick) enters the hall first, inspecting as he goes. He notices four statues of displacer beasts, with amber eyes aglow. He also notices a naked female prisoner tied to the altar at the far end of the room. She is being guarded by two gnomish skulks and three dire rats.

As our party attacks the creatures guarding who appears to be Mirtala, the dire rats play dirty. Filth Fever is given to Jenks and Aelar, affecting their health. Jenks reveals another deadly weapon at this point, Gratch, his pet spider, has come along for the fight! Our party continues to attack…

The gnomes proved no match for our heroes, but they had a few tricks up their sleeves, too. The party attacked and attacked until the gnomes were bleeding profusely. As the gnomes got up from their latest wounds, they vanished! The party members attacked the spots where the gnomes had been, hitting something once.

The gnomes reappeared behind Nora and stabbed her in the back! Nora dropped with a gasp like a sack of doorknobs onto the dungeon floor. Upon noticing this, Aelar rushed to her aid and rescued her. The gnomes were ferociously attacked by Stoobs, Bridgette, Jenks, Ruddick, and Gratch at this point. Giving the final blows, Stoobs lowers his weapon.

They party turns their attention to the hostage, who appears to be frightened half to death. She can’t even speak! Jenks softened his voice and talked to her, calming her down. It turns out this is Mirtala, whom earlier reports said she was planned to be eaten! Jenks unties her from the altar and notices this altar is different. Upon further inspection, this altar was dedicated to the Raven Queen!

Finding nothing useful, our heroes head back up the stairs with another hostage in tow…

Entering the cellar, the characters notice that this is no ordinary cellar. Indeed, they have stumbled upon something much bigger! Upon entering the cellar, there is an inscription on the wall “Here lie the Rivenroars until the day of the black sun, if you seek their monument, look at the lands around you.” Puzzled, our heroes look around the crypt for clues to the stolen treasures of Brindol.

Four sarcophagi adorn the center of the room, all standing on end. An altar is in the Southeast corner of the room. Searching the altar, they notice it was originally dedicated to Vecna, a very evil god. However, since the hobgoblins invaded the castle, they made some modifications. The altar is now dedicated to Bane, which is noted as the god of war.

Upon searching the room, bedrolls and rucksacks are found everywhere. The characters begin the search for the missing artifacts of Brindol. Nothing is found within the rucksacks or bedrolls and our heroes seem to be at a dead end. That is, until Sertanian speaks up. “I say we search the Sarcophagi, these hobgoblins have no respect for the dead and probably hid the artifacts inside them.” The party reluctantly agrees to search the sarcophagi…

In the first one, our characters slide the heavy lid off to reveal a skeleton beneath. A magical stag helm is located on the head of the skeleton, which is taken for the party. In the next three, only corpses, silver, and gold are found.

Searching the room further, our party notices a pit in one of the corners with an odd smell coming from it. The party deduces this was probably a pit meant for invaders to fall into.